Hamlet Zinkivsky grew up speaking Russian in the city of Kharkov, just like his parents. But when Vladimir Putin launched the invasion of Ukraine on February 24, it was the last push for him to switch entirely to Ukrainian.
“Unfortunately, I grew up speaking Russian, but it’s not pleasant to speak the same language as the army, which is destroying entire parts of our country,” said Zinkovsky, a 35-year-old street artist widely known to Kharkiv residents. to him by his first name.
The change of language is part of a broader journey towards a more pronounced Ukrainian identity for Zinkivskyi, something many in the predominantly Russian-speaking regions of eastern and southern Ukraine share. This is a process that has become more pronounced in the last three months, but has been maturing for several years.
As a young artist, Zinkivsky had a long-held dream: an exhibition in Moscow. Kharkov is only a few tens of miles from the border with Russia and has long been almost entirely Russian-speaking. Culturally, Moscow felt like the center of the universe. But when Zinkivskyi finally reached the gallery there in 2012, he was horrified. “They were disgusting and patronizing to Kharkiv and Ukraine, and I honestly thought: fuck them,” he said. He returned to Kharkiv and became more focused on the Ukrainian art scene.
After the annexation of Crimea in 2014, Zinkivsky began trying to speak Ukrainian with several friends. Now he has completely changed and for the first time introduces political and patriotic themes in his art.
The language problem is something that arises again and again in Kharkov. Alexandra Panchenko, a 22-year-old interior designer, said she has been working hard since 2014 to improve her Ukrainian, but admitted that she still often speaks Russian with friends.
However, she is adamant that as long as she has children, she will be fluent enough to speak only Ukrainian at home. “I grew up in a family in Russian, my children will grow up in a family in Ukrainian,” she said.
As early as 2014, there was a separatist roar in Kharkiv, with some people watching the rapid annexation of Crimea and wondering if the whole of eastern Ukraine might not be better off in Russia. But eight years of monitoring the miserable conditions in Russia’s proxy states of Donetsk and Luhansk have suppressed those sentiments, and Russia’s invasion has almost completely suppressed them.
One of Hamlet’s murals in the center of Kharkov entitled “I work like no one.” Photo: Alessio Mamo / The Observer
Panchenko, who painted her nails blue and yellow and describes herself as an unwavering patriot, speculated about the political leanings of Kharkiv residents before the war, based on her wide circle of acquaintances. About 10% of the city was what is contemptuously known as quilters – aggressively pro-Russian, she said. She described 30% as “Ukraine, Ukraine, Ukraine” and 50% as “neutral – they feel Ukrainian, but not so strong”.
Russia’s war against Ukraine has pushed people of this neutral category more firmly into the patriotic camp, creating a much broader and more passionate pro-Ukrainian base than ever before, especially in the eastern part of the country.
“There were many neutral people here, but as soon as the war broke out, many of them decided to fight,” said Vsevolod Kozhemyako, a businessman who runs an agricultural company and was once on Forbes’ list of the 100 richest Ukrainians. .
Kozhemyako was skiing in Europe when the war broke out and left his family to return to Ukraine and set up a volunteer battalion. His unit is based near the front line outside Kharkov, in settlements that have been subjected to relentless Russian shelling.
Three of Kozhemyako’s four grandparents are Russians, and during the Soviet era, his passport indicated his nationality as Russian. However, he said he had been a strong Ukrainian patriot since the 2004 Orange Revolution and rejected Russia’s influence in Ukraine.
“Runacs and Ukrainians are completely different. I am Russian-speaking, I think in Russian and I have three quarters of Russian blood, but part of the Ukrainian blood has left its mark on me, “he said in an interview in the center of Kharkov, where he now allows himself from time to time. away from his unit.
Kozemyako and Zinkivski are old acquaintances, and when the artist told the businessman he wanted to register, Kozhemyako greeted him in the battalion, but told him he had to fight with a brush, not a pistol. Since then, Zinkivsky has been busy painting slogans on buildings damaged by Russian missiles. He also crossed out signs on Pushkin Street and renamed it English Street, which he said was a recognition of British military support for Ukraine.
“Hamlet is very patriotic and his works are quite philosophical,” Kozhemyako said. “They make people think in the direction of a new Ukraine. That’s very important, especially now. “
Geographical and cultural differences in Ukraine have been one of the reasons Putin and other Russian leaders have tried to argue that the country is an artificial structure. Instead, they now find that their bloody invasion has done more than anything to unite the different parts of Ukraine under a common identity, in opposition to Moscow.
At the same time, the Russian invasion gave those who might be neutral in their allegiance a clear choice as to which country they wanted to identify with, and provided a unifying point that gave a broad and inclusive idea of what it meant to be Ukrainian patriot.
Pro-Russian Viktor Medvedchuk, arrested in the early days of the war. Photo: Sergei Nuzhnenko / Reuters
In the first days of the war, Ukrainian President Vladimir Zelensky passed a decree banning the activities of a number of pro-Russian parties, and the country’s most famous pro-Russian politician, Viktor Medvedchuk, was arrested.
Medvedchuk, whose daughter is Putin’s godmother, has long been considered Putin’s man in Kyiv. But even some of his close associates have become patriots since the invasion.
Yuri Zagorodni, a member of parliament, has been on Medvedchuk’s side since they both served in former President Leonid Kuchma’s administration in the early 2000s. However, he said he had decided in the early days of the war that his relationship with Medvedchuk was over. “Ukraine is my homeland, Russia is the aggressor, and Putin is the main criminal of the 21st century,” he said in an interview in Kyiv, using dramatically different rhetoric from what he used in a previous interview in mid-February.
Zagorodni said he joined the Territorial Defense Squad in his hometown, south of Kyiv, in the early days of the war. He had spent several nights at the checkpoint and other days observing the construction of trenches.
He said he spent hours checking the documents of drivers of passing cars; then, when he had to travel to Kyiv for parliamentary sittings, he was stopped at another checkpoint, where the men took him out of the car and verbally insulted him when they saw that he was an MP from Medvedchuk’s party. He assured the men that he was a staunch patriot. “I feel guilty, but what we wanted was peaceful coexistence between the parties. Of course, now it’s all over, “said Zagorodni.
“Changing shoes in the air” is the Ukrainian expression for this kind of rapid transformation in attitudes to fit into the prevailing climate, but despite everything that may have cynical self-preservation at work, there is also a feeling that people have had to make choices : either to side with Ukraine, which is fighting for its right to exist, or with Russia, which is launching rockets and bombs at sleeping cities and where freedom of expression is no longer legal.
For many, this is an easy choice, and by launching an attack on Ukraine the way he did, Putin has deprived Russia of many of its natural supporters.
“My 11-year-old nephew talks about Putler, a mix of Putin and Hitler. He will spend his whole life hating Russia and his children. Maybe in a few generations this will change, but not before that, “said Zagorodni.
In the port of Odessa, Mayor Gennady Trukhanov, who is considered pro-Russian, released an angry video in the early days of the war in response to claims by the Kremlin that he was protecting Russian-speakers in the country. “Who the hell are you going to defend here?” he asked. In the central town of Krivoy Rog, Mayor Alexander Vilkul, formerly considered pro-Russian, has also renamed himself a patriot and defended the city.
In addition to strengthening the sense of Ukrainian identity among politicians and the general population in the south and east of the country, the war also helped increase respect for these areas in the patriotic fortresses of western and central Ukraine, where some questioned the loyalty of some east, especially after 2014
Kozhemyako said all doubts about these regions should now be considered settled: “Many people in western Ukraine have seen Kharkiv fighting,” he said.
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